A Tale of Two Cities
26.1.2023
All good stories begin — with a good story. A story of a city founded on a lake dug overnight by Chimaji Appa's army on their return from Vasai. A story that starts with the narrator, Dr. Smita Dalvi, under a pipal tree, hesitantly mentioning in a shy voice that this is her first heritage walk, albeit based on 20 years of pacing the city's lanes and bylanes, noting the crumbling and disappearing testaments of a once brilliant past.
I've done heritage walks in Thane myself, of its multiconfessional heritage and multilayered past, so this walk of Panvel resonated deeply. They were two ports of the Nizamshahis, exporting coveted good across the western Indian Ocean — cotton cloth and Salsette teak for Thane; salt, rice and timber goods for Panvel. The stories mirror each other as the two saw a secular decline under the Portuguese, whose deep devotion to their Vatican overlords overrode their commercial common sense. The stories twine once again under the Maratha reconquista*, as under Subedars Bivalkar (Thane) and Bapat (Panvel), they see the revival that sits at the foundation of their modern identities.
At Thane is the small but muscular Kopineshwar fronting the Masunda talao, with thick masonry walls topped by the gem-in-the-lotus dome, a style perfected by the Bahamanis and Adilshahis. At Panvel, a little more impressive is its twin, Ballaleshwar, fronting the Vadale talao — the one built by the army. Kopineshwar opens to an open plan mandapa built in, erm, RCC in the late 19th c, in Rajasthani style. Ballaleshwar, in spite of multiple modifications, retains some of the original Konkanesque timber architecture in the mandapa. Ballaleshwar also displays a mature Maratha _shikhara_, oil-painted in monochrome, surrounded by little domelets in the gem-in-the-lotus pattern. It's an understudied, underappreciated style of architecture, with its 8-sided spire in lieu of the classical pyramid, with niches reminiscent of the 64 lokas of the bhumijas (8 niches each, on 8 sides each, hmmm...). A lotus base, hosting the amalaka, topped off by a pointed kalasha, completes the apex of both the dome and the _shikhara_.
From Ballaleshwar we plunged into the market streets of the old town, named Sadashivpeth and Bazarpeth. Like Thane's own Bazarpeth, these streets were once lined with timber-beamed and Mangalore tile-roofed wadas — palatial homes that once housed the town elite and their tenants. Built once with the indigenous genius of teak carpentry, most of them have disappeared in both Panvel and Thane, victims to the inability to maintain them, and the desire for a modern house with modern conveniences.
Sadashivpeth is highlighted by the temples of Rama (privately owned by the Pardeshi family) and of Virupaksha. The former is perhaps the last remnant of the Konkan's humble, endogenous style. It is square in plan, with wooden jalis separating the garbhagriha from the mandapa, and roofed like homes, with timber beams and Mangalore tiles; a compromise with aluminium patra, with some sighs, has to be accepted in these times. The temple to Virupaksha was once like this, before its trustees succumbed to the half-need, half-desire for jirnoddhar, creating a structure somewhat in imitation of Pune's Parvati temple. Which in turn might have taken a few tips from the Moharram _taziyas_ of the Shias. The Konkan and the Deccan lend and borrow.
Thane could offer its Thakurdwar (now called Siddhivinayak) as a parallel: a formerly timber-roofed, two-tiered building with multiple deities and a modern shikhara.
The lanes are more similar, with names like Kapad Galli and Mirchi Galli in Panvel and Lohar Ali and Bhandar Ali in Thane proclaiming to each's former trades before all-enveloping industrialization imposed its 21st century monotony. The old cloth shops run by Marwadis and Kachchhis in Kapad Galli once sold broadcloths and brocades to Kunbis and Agris who had just sold their rice and salt to the shippers — today they all sell readymade Punjabi churidars. La plus ça change, la plus c'est la même chose. The chilli sellers in Mirchi Galli (a trade and crop brought to Panvel by the Portuguese!) will still sell you chillies in loose — Byadgi, Kashmiri, Pandi, Sannam, too many to name. As a joke, I think of asking about bhut jolokia, restrained only by the possibility that he might call my bluff, and make me cough up, figuratively, and literally. We moved to the riverside, the map the ancient wharfs from where Panvel's produce was taken in dhows and galbats across the Arabian Sea. In its last avatar, Panvel's bunder was the point where the Company and Raj bigwigs landed from Bombay by ferry, to make the long cart ride to Pune. Wellesley, fresh from triumphs over Mysore and the Marathas finally left the Indian mainland from Panvel, boarding a boat to take him to Bombay island, and thence to the career that made him Wellington.
And that is where the stories diverge. The railways from the hinterland run down from the Bhorghat in the 1860s, but then skirt Panvel for Kalyan and Thane before terminating near Bombay's bunders. Panvel dies as a port once again, and is left to long years of neglect as the Gadhi river silts up slowly. Thane and Kalyan too die as ports — but have the solace of becoming factory towns feeding the hungry railway wagons with chemicals and machine-spun cotton.
Panvel's Beth El synagogue doesn't carry the opulence or the throngs of Thane's Sha'ar HaShamaim, but it doesn't have to. As the sole synagogue where prayers are answered, it attracts believer from as far afield as Thane, Tel Aviv and Toronto. Retaining much of its timber-scaffolded charm, Beth El is a warm, welcoming place, unlike the looming magnificence of its Thane counterpart guarded by a machine gun nest. We walk on the Israel talao, a multipurpose tank built by a Gujarati donor whose name I have forgotten. By it is a little schoolhouse in the Konkani style, that sits untouched by time or the vagaries of the real estate business. Though we were greeted by cold samosas and defeated jalebis, the warmth and enthusiasm of the host more than made up for it. Thane has nothing to offer here: Panvel, take a bow. We ended at the tiny Bene Israel cemetery, the eternal resting place of Benjamin Chincholkar and the words of his wife Ruby's poem, that require him to be to her as Rama was to Sita, birth after birth.
Urban sprawl is bringing new blood to Panvel and Thane literally — as young families move here from Mumbai in search of cheaper housing. It brings its risks, as these new populations unaware of the heritage of these places hanker after the glamour promised by the builders' brochures of shiny residential estates, malls and multiplexes, accessed by highways and flyovers that promise them a direct connect to SoBo and BKC and the flashy new airport. There are opportunities too, since there is also in them a desire to know more, to explore and to experience, which can only be fulfilled by the kind of experiences Dr. Smita Dalvi exposed to us today.
*Sometimes words come back for a delicious denouement.
I've done heritage walks in Thane myself, of its multiconfessional heritage and multilayered past, so this walk of Panvel resonated deeply. They were two ports of the Nizamshahis, exporting coveted good across the western Indian Ocean — cotton cloth and Salsette teak for Thane; salt, rice and timber goods for Panvel. The stories mirror each other as the two saw a secular decline under the Portuguese, whose deep devotion to their Vatican overlords overrode their commercial common sense. The stories twine once again under the Maratha reconquista*, as under Subedars Bivalkar (Thane) and Bapat (Panvel), they see the revival that sits at the foundation of their modern identities.
At Thane is the small but muscular Kopineshwar fronting the Masunda talao, with thick masonry walls topped by the gem-in-the-lotus dome, a style perfected by the Bahamanis and Adilshahis. At Panvel, a little more impressive is its twin, Ballaleshwar, fronting the Vadale talao — the one built by the army. Kopineshwar opens to an open plan mandapa built in, erm, RCC in the late 19th c, in Rajasthani style. Ballaleshwar, in spite of multiple modifications, retains some of the original Konkanesque timber architecture in the mandapa. Ballaleshwar also displays a mature Maratha _shikhara_, oil-painted in monochrome, surrounded by little domelets in the gem-in-the-lotus pattern. It's an understudied, underappreciated style of architecture, with its 8-sided spire in lieu of the classical pyramid, with niches reminiscent of the 64 lokas of the bhumijas (8 niches each, on 8 sides each, hmmm...). A lotus base, hosting the amalaka, topped off by a pointed kalasha, completes the apex of both the dome and the _shikhara_.
From Ballaleshwar we plunged into the market streets of the old town, named Sadashivpeth and Bazarpeth. Like Thane's own Bazarpeth, these streets were once lined with timber-beamed and Mangalore tile-roofed wadas — palatial homes that once housed the town elite and their tenants. Built once with the indigenous genius of teak carpentry, most of them have disappeared in both Panvel and Thane, victims to the inability to maintain them, and the desire for a modern house with modern conveniences.
Sadashivpeth is highlighted by the temples of Rama (privately owned by the Pardeshi family) and of Virupaksha. The former is perhaps the last remnant of the Konkan's humble, endogenous style. It is square in plan, with wooden jalis separating the garbhagriha from the mandapa, and roofed like homes, with timber beams and Mangalore tiles; a compromise with aluminium patra, with some sighs, has to be accepted in these times. The temple to Virupaksha was once like this, before its trustees succumbed to the half-need, half-desire for jirnoddhar, creating a structure somewhat in imitation of Pune's Parvati temple. Which in turn might have taken a few tips from the Moharram _taziyas_ of the Shias. The Konkan and the Deccan lend and borrow.
Thane could offer its Thakurdwar (now called Siddhivinayak) as a parallel: a formerly timber-roofed, two-tiered building with multiple deities and a modern shikhara.
The lanes are more similar, with names like Kapad Galli and Mirchi Galli in Panvel and Lohar Ali and Bhandar Ali in Thane proclaiming to each's former trades before all-enveloping industrialization imposed its 21st century monotony. The old cloth shops run by Marwadis and Kachchhis in Kapad Galli once sold broadcloths and brocades to Kunbis and Agris who had just sold their rice and salt to the shippers — today they all sell readymade Punjabi churidars. La plus ça change, la plus c'est la même chose. The chilli sellers in Mirchi Galli (a trade and crop brought to Panvel by the Portuguese!) will still sell you chillies in loose — Byadgi, Kashmiri, Pandi, Sannam, too many to name. As a joke, I think of asking about bhut jolokia, restrained only by the possibility that he might call my bluff, and make me cough up, figuratively, and literally. We moved to the riverside, the map the ancient wharfs from where Panvel's produce was taken in dhows and galbats across the Arabian Sea. In its last avatar, Panvel's bunder was the point where the Company and Raj bigwigs landed from Bombay by ferry, to make the long cart ride to Pune. Wellesley, fresh from triumphs over Mysore and the Marathas finally left the Indian mainland from Panvel, boarding a boat to take him to Bombay island, and thence to the career that made him Wellington.
And that is where the stories diverge. The railways from the hinterland run down from the Bhorghat in the 1860s, but then skirt Panvel for Kalyan and Thane before terminating near Bombay's bunders. Panvel dies as a port once again, and is left to long years of neglect as the Gadhi river silts up slowly. Thane and Kalyan too die as ports — but have the solace of becoming factory towns feeding the hungry railway wagons with chemicals and machine-spun cotton.
Panvel's Beth El synagogue doesn't carry the opulence or the throngs of Thane's Sha'ar HaShamaim, but it doesn't have to. As the sole synagogue where prayers are answered, it attracts believer from as far afield as Thane, Tel Aviv and Toronto. Retaining much of its timber-scaffolded charm, Beth El is a warm, welcoming place, unlike the looming magnificence of its Thane counterpart guarded by a machine gun nest. We walk on the Israel talao, a multipurpose tank built by a Gujarati donor whose name I have forgotten. By it is a little schoolhouse in the Konkani style, that sits untouched by time or the vagaries of the real estate business. Though we were greeted by cold samosas and defeated jalebis, the warmth and enthusiasm of the host more than made up for it. Thane has nothing to offer here: Panvel, take a bow. We ended at the tiny Bene Israel cemetery, the eternal resting place of Benjamin Chincholkar and the words of his wife Ruby's poem, that require him to be to her as Rama was to Sita, birth after birth.
Urban sprawl is bringing new blood to Panvel and Thane literally — as young families move here from Mumbai in search of cheaper housing. It brings its risks, as these new populations unaware of the heritage of these places hanker after the glamour promised by the builders' brochures of shiny residential estates, malls and multiplexes, accessed by highways and flyovers that promise them a direct connect to SoBo and BKC and the flashy new airport. There are opportunities too, since there is also in them a desire to know more, to explore and to experience, which can only be fulfilled by the kind of experiences Dr. Smita Dalvi exposed to us today.
*Sometimes words come back for a delicious denouement.
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